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Rockingham Listers start reappraisal

By DOMENIC POLI / Reformer Staff

Posted:
04/04/2014 03:00:00 AM EDT

BELLOWS FALLS -- The Rockingham Board of Listers has started a townwide reappraisal and got approval from the town's Selectboard on Tuesday to hire a temporary employee to assist in the data collection phase of the project.

The Selectboard voted 4-0 in the Rockingham Town Hall Lower Theatre (Ann DiBernardo was not present) to authorize the Listers to get a part-time data collector, who will be paid with funds from the Reappraisal Reserve account.

Camilla Roberts, chairwoman of the Listers, told the Selectboard the reappraisal is a multi-year process and, in order to properly maintain the Grand List for fair market values, it is necessary to inspect properties for changes that may have happened since the previous townwide appraisals were conducted in 2004-2005.

Roberts said the Listers will start the inspections in June or July and a letter will be sent out each month to property owners in the area where they will be working. The Listers, she said, will not attempt any interior inspections without an owner or authorized adult present and will have a Rockingham identification tag on their person or on their vehicle. The other Listers are Paul Noble and Michael Harty.

According to information from the Listers, inspections last about 20 to 30 minutes. If no one is home, there will be an exterior review of the property and a notice will be left at the door. If an owner does not want the Listers on their property, they can call the Listers' office at 802-463-1229, ext. 117.

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"We don't know exactly how many years it's going to take us to do this, because we're starting from scratch. We have a whole entirely new program (MicroSolve)," Roberts told the Selectboard. "We just got that installed."

Later in Tuesday's meeting, the Selectboard awarded Cravinho Property Maintenance with a bid to remove and reconstruct the South Street stone wall (located in Bellows Falls), though the project cannot exceed $2,950. The Selectboard also approved a contract with the same company to remove the concrete sidewalk and prepare a subgrade for a new concrete sidewalk at a rate of $75 per hour, not to exceed $3,000.

The project will not cost more than $5,950.

According to Municipal Manager Willis D. "Chip" Stearns II, requests for proposal were sent out to eight contractors on March 13, but only Cravinho and Barbour Masonry responded by the bid deadline of 3 p.m. on March 27.

In other business:

-- Bellows Falls Police Chief Ron Lake was appointed as first constable and Det. Lt. Shane Harris as second constable.

Domenic Poli can be reached at dpoli@reformer.com, or 802-254-2311, ext. 277. You can follow him on Twitter @dpoli_reformer.

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